<p>hey guys! very quick question: Does Harvard accept extra recommendation letters? if so, how many is considered max?
thnx!</p>
<p>I heard someone sent rec letters everyday until like march, beginning in december</p>
<p>That wouldn't even be possible. Who would write those letters. I wouldn't send them more then one extra LOR. The person reading your file is either going to like what a few people say about you or they won't. A extra good won't override a bad one in my opinion. And an extra good one won't say anything that the original couldn't.</p>
<p>okay, so we should send the recs by January 2nd rite? to be considered? is that so?</p>
<p>Yes, they should be postmarked by or before the date that the school closes its common application.</p>
<p>How bad is a bad one?</p>
<p>Well it's not good when teachers can't even bring themselves to write a generic positive letter of req. Especially when alot of kids at Harvard are getting "best in career" type of letters.</p>
<p>My son sent in two outside letters. One was from a med school prof that he'd written a program for, that got cited in a couple of papers, the second was from the boss of the company that he did computer programming for on a freelance basis. Since he ran out of computer courses to take at his high school as a freshman these letters showed both an academic side of him his high school teachers didn't know about. Also since he had relatively few ECs at school they showed that he had a life outside academics. I think they were both very strong recommendations. (At least the one we saw was - if anything, I thought it was a little over the top, but I didn't see it until after it went in.)</p>
<p>My school has an excellent counseling department, and my counselor's rec was apparently wonderful. It included a lot of different stories from people in my life, i.e. my 'employer' (friend of counselor), math coach, etc. I don't think I need any supplemental recs; would my application be disadvantaged in any way if there weren't any? I don't think it will be an issue, just wondering.</p>
<p>Right now, I have had 4 rec letters sent in -- my Counselor's rec letter, two teacher recs (one from my AP Chemistry teacher last year and the other from my AP World History teacher last year), and an outside rec letter from a close friend of mine's dad that I got to know very well over the years (he graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1986, so I figured he was a perfect choice, and his rec letter was excellent).</p>
<p>I think any more than 4 (or 5, max) is plenty for the adcoms to read.</p>
<p>baelor, it sounds like your GC wrote a wonderful comprehensive recommendation. Our GC knew and liked our son, but she had a lot of other students. I didn't see her recommendation, but my son said she said nice things. We filled out a questionnaire for her, so she knew more or less some of his outside of school accomplishments, but I know from an award ceremony that it's possible that what she wrote was somewhat garbled. I wouldn't send more than one or two and not everyone needs extra letters.</p>
<p>I'll add that my son added those extra letters to his package after being deferred by both MIT and Caltech. It seemed like maybe his application needed a little more.</p>
<p>mathmom, thanks for your input. My school is a small private, so counselor-student ration is less than 20:1 and I have a very close relationship with mine. Your son's deferral is also enlightening (I guess they couldn't recognize his potential, at least at first!).</p>
<p>I got accepted to Stanford early this year, but I know that Harvard RD is more competitive. In light of that result, I don't think I need more recommendations. Thanks again.</p>
<p>^ Stanford, congrats</p>
<p>hopefully that'll prove to be a good omen for you by the time April 1 comes around</p>
<p>good luck</p>
<p>You have no idea how much I hope it's an omen! Thanks.</p>